Page 94 of Fae Reckoning

The space where she’d only just stood … was empty. I caught sight of a swirl of black gossamer skirts at the far end of the gallery that opened up beyond the doors.

I blinked again. Even that glimpse of her vanished.

“She moves too fast,” Xeno snarled, his voice by my ear. “It’s not normal.”

“No, it’s not,” I bit out as the pygmy ogre nearest me shattered the stunned stillness at the false queen’s sudden disappearance, and lumbered toward me.

Rush jumped forward to take him on. Xeno did the same with a second pygmy ogre, who was mumbling, “For queenie, for queenie,” in a disturbingly childlike voice.

I sensed Talisa dashing through the palace, her unsettlingly seductive laughter trailing her advance. I cut a path through the guards, who stood aside to let me through—not reassuring at all—before closing in behind me.

“El!” Rush exclaimed, but then he was caught up in battle. The cries were already furious, the clank of blades and other weapons loud.

I glanced back a final time. Rush, Xeno, and the other fighters were taking on several opponents at a time. Hiroshi and Roan were running from Reed’s side to offer aid.

Pru, Edsel, and presumably Zafi skirted along the side of the skirmish unnoticed. The goblins used their powers to fade into the walls. The MISO remained invisible.

The faint trail of Talisa’s laughter, which I suspected only I heard, lured me forward. Perhaps it always needed to be this way. One queen against another.

My destiny.

As the wall of windows crashed behind me, and I glimpsed Einar landing inside the room with the corral, I bolted after Talisa. The pitter-patter of two pairs of goblin feet, one of them made of wompa leather, followed on my heels.

“Forgive me, Rush,” I whispered, though over the din he would never hear me.

30.WHAT NEEDED TO BE DONE, NOTHING MORE, NOTHING LESS

ELOWYN

I followed the trail of Talisa’s beckoning laughter to the Hall of Mirrors. When I entered the vast, grand room, she was already seated upon her throne, feigning ennui as she studied the blood-red ruby rings upon several of her fingers. The gems alone could have fed the entire outskirts of Embermere for weeks if not months.

The goblins’ quiet footfalls silenced behind me. Pru and Edsel pressed to the wall using their kind’s magic to fade into their surroundings. I didn’t dare glance their way to check for the blurred outline of their bodies that one could see only if they knew where to look. I strode forward before I could consider the many ways this could go wrong, how often she’d revealed her superiority, how many times she’d outmaneuvered us. I drew to a halt with at least forty feet between us. Though distance was no protection from her powers, at least I remained close enough to the doors that I could still run if I had to. It would mean she’d defeated us if Idid, but regardless, Icouldretreat and hope she didn’t catch me with that animal-like speed no other person possessed.

Finally, she glanced up, curled her fingers like claws, then allowed them to rest too daintily atop the gossamer folds of her skirts.

“I see you’ve dispensed with the ruse of my father as equal ruler of Embermere,” I said, looking pointedly at the empty spaces to either side of her throne. There was no sign that a king had once sat beside her.

She frowned. I’d cut short her theatrics when she’d expected to speak first, the dictate of royalty. She hmmphed. “Now you’re calling him ‘father,’ are you?”

“Only for the sake of clarity.”

She laughed as several guards dressed in sky-blue emerged from the same tunnel Rush used to whisk me to safety after the death of Lady Aleeza. The guards were out of breath, their faces flushed from exertion.

Talisa glanced at them and rolled her eyes. “It is Oren who’s the disappointment. He’s too weak to rule Embermere with me. In the interest of the fae whom I serve, it was only right to remove him. The fae deserve the very strongest to sit upon this throne.”

I snorted. “Sure, yeah,of course. The needs of the fae come first.”

Her eyes hardened, glinting like stones. There were no windows in the hall, most of the wall space covered by enormous mirrors. Ifeltthe sky darken. Thunder rumbled so suddenly and so loudly that it clapped even inside the room.

The queen’s perfectly red lips curved into a snarl of disgust. “I don’t know why I even bother with you. You’re so”—her lips curled more—“common.”

I smiled with exaggerated pleasure, showing teeth. “Why, thank you! Thecommonfae I’ve met have been lovely. TheroyalsI’ve met, however, have been, well … you and my father…”

“How dare you?” she bellowed, half rising from her throne, her fingers clutching the armrests carved with dragons.

“Aye, how dare … you treat my … queen this … way?”

I spun to find a very winded Braque staggering across the glass floor, beneath which snakes writhed continuously, climbing over each other as if trying to escape. He wore silly heeled shoes with buckles on the front, breeches that exposed stockings and voluminous calves, and his omnipresent potions satchel hanging below his ample gut. Every patch of skin on display was such a deep shade of pink I wondered if his heart might fail him and save me the trouble of killing him.

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